How To Host a Seduction (3 page)

“Christopher is one of the neighborhood kids, Ellen. I've known him since I was ten years old.”

She might have laughed at Lennon's casual description of “neighborhood kids,” which brought to mind a motley gang riding bikes or playing ice hockey on frozen ponds in the winter. But like Ellen's own, Lennon's upbringing hadn't exactly been traditional. She'd been raised in the exclusive Garden District of New Orleans, where kids lived in mansions and toured the continent during summer breaks.

“What's your point?”

“My point is that I've known him a long time. Christopher may enjoy adventurous hobbies, but he's no adrenaline junkie. He just likes to have fun—which is something you could use a little help with, I don't mind saying.”

She should have known Lennon would drag her back here despite evasive maneuvers. “You call driving a car in circles at a hundred miles an hour
fun?
”

“He plays hard, but that's only because he works so hard. He's incredibly driven. Just like someone else I know.”

Her pointed stare left no doubt that she considered Ellen guilty of the same crime.

“Well, I don't spend my weekends jumping out of airplanes, or scuba diving for sunken treasure.”

“I don't always go into the Gulf with Josh on his week-long fishing excursions—and we make out just fine. A couple can enjoy individual interests. What's wrong with that?”

“I don't equate the risk factor of deep-sea fishing with rappelling down a mountainside in the Rockies.”

“It could be dangerous if Josh was caught in a hurricane.”

“Josh won't be caught in a hurricane unless he's an idiot. They have meteorological satellites that track storms.”

Lennon was still battling that smile when Ellen slugged back the last of her latte and set the mug on the table.

“He thrives on breaking the rules,” she said. “I was just his challenge
du jour.
”

“You don't believe Christopher cares about you?” That wiped away the last of Lennon's humor. “Ellen, the guy's crazy about you. I know because he told me.”

He told me, too.

With a sigh, she decided to make the argument she'd intended to reserve for herself. “If he was so crazy about me, then why couldn't he compromise and do things the right way? Why did he just let me go? He made a few token phone calls and that was it. I haven't heard from him in three months.”

“You wanted him to chase you?”

Ellen winced at how petty that reasoning sounded. And yes, she would even consider that her need to know he was
the one
might be petty in some regards. But she'd spent most of her life trying to prove herself—to her family, to the press, to her supervisors, to
herself.
Was it really so much to ask to be reassured that the man she married
would always,
always
believe in her, no matter how rough-and-tumble life got? No matter how much baggage she came with?

“If he'd been
the one,
he would have been willing to compromise, Lennon, willing to find some way of accommodating both our needs. He wasn't.”

It was her most fundamental rule of sound business:
Choose your battles and only fight for what you believe in.

She obviously hadn't been worth fighting for.

“T
HERE YOU ARE
,” a familiar female voice called across the lobby, shattering the tense moment and buying Ellen a welcome reprieve. “You guys should have come with us. We had a blast.”

Blast
appeared to be the equivalent of a rip-roaring time on the town, judging by the size of the tumblers the trio of women held. Hurricanes, if Ellen correctly identified the color through the plastic.

“Looks like we should get the waiter to bring espresso,” Lennon whispered as the women started toward them.

“It'll only wake them up and make them even louder.”

Lennon grimaced. “Can't you control them? They're your authors.”

“They're your friends.”

“I'd never have met them if you hadn't taken us all out to that show at the Reno convention.”

Ellen's rebuttal was lost when the trio descended, plunking down sweating plastic tumblers and dragging chairs around the table amid a chorus of hellos.

Susanna St. John, Tracy Owens and Stephanie Kondas were all successful romance authors at very different stages in their careers. Industry-savvy women, when they weren't indulging in mobile Hurricanes, they hosted a Web community with Lennon, a place where readers could chat on bulletin boards, enter various contests and generally keep
tabs on author news between book releases. Ellen enjoyed working with each of them.

“Oh, Stephanie pinched some man's ass. I am
so
telling her husband,” Tracy, a die-hard glamour girl, informed them as she swept around the table, as dramatic as ever in a pale gold chiffon that swirled around her ankles.

Stephanie, the newest author of the group, was a slim, athletic-looking woman who admirably held her own with the three more experienced authors she'd embraced as friends. She plopped down with a scowl. “You dared me. I do not back down on a dare.”

Tracy winked slyly. “She had a death grip on his biscuit.”

“Well, he had some mighty fine biscuits. What can I say?”

“Save it for the husband.”

Ellen chuckled at the thought of sweet Stephanie trying to explain her antics to her equally sweet husband and kids.

“We've been drinking,” Susanna stated unnecessarily while arranging her black taffeta gown and maneuvering unsteadily into a chair. “Hope we're not intruding.”

Screwing her smile back into place, Ellen ignored the way her jaw ached and decided she'd make out better by just leaving the smile on until the convention ended. “Of course not. Shall we order coffee?”

“And ruin this divine buzz?” Tracy asked incredulously. “I'll just keep sipping my too-sweet alcoholic beverage, if you don't mind.” Then she swept an unfocused gaze around the table. “Do you all realize this is the first chance we've had to talk privately? Between the publisher's functions and the awards ceremony tonight, I've moderated three author discussions. Can you believe it?”

Actually, Ellen could. “Don't you know how to say no?”

“Say no? You're kidding, right?” Susanna shook her head. “Tracy's been schmoozing the convention committee for months to be invited to fill these slots. She's a glutton for attention.”

“My name looks good printed on the program.”

Lennon laughed. “With all your promotional efforts, I don't know when you find the time to write. You put us all to shame.”

“That's my job, dear.” Tracy glanced at her manicured nails, preening.

Ellen laughed, another one of those heartfelt, liberating chuckles that she hadn't enjoyed nearly often enough of late. That was, of course, until she found herself the recipient of Susanna's button-black stare.

Susanna St. John had been in the romance industry for years, writing for various publishing houses before becoming Ellen's author. She routinely enjoyed a place on the
New York Times
bestseller list, and Ellen considered having acquired her a major feather in her cap.

But Susanna was also older than Ellen by almost a decade, had been in the business longer and possessed an unsettling knack for calling a spade a spade.

She wore one of those no-nonsense looks now. “What's been up with you lately?”

An innocuous question in itself, but there was something less than offhand in her tone that caught Ellen's attention. “Nothing much. Swamped as usual.”

Silence. A trio of tipsy gazes fixed on her, waiting…

“You'd tell me if I wasn't living up to expectations, wouldn't you?” Stephanie asked, a not-so-innocuous question.

As she was currently revising her third contracted book,
Stephanie's curiosity about her editor's expectations was natural. But this question came out of left field, reinforcing Ellen's impression that this conversation was headed somewhere.

“Of course I would. But wretched title aside, your latest book is coming along beautifully. You're not letting these jaded old hacks worry you with their war stories, are you?”

Tracy huffed. “Watch who you're calling old there, Ms. I'm-getting-ready-to-turn-thirty.”

“You're right behind me, Ms. I'm-getting-ready-to-turn-thirty-a-month-after-me.” Ellen forced a laugh, but she caught Lennon's frown across the table.

“What else did you do on Bourbon Street tonight,
besides
pound Hurricanes?” Lennon neatly diverted the conversation.

“Visited a few sex toy stores to get ideas for our books,” Tracy said.

“And pinched a few cute butts.” Stephanie grinned.

“The usual Saturday night fare for horny women,” Susanna added. “You've been so busy that we haven't had a chance to chat. How's the family? Parents, siblings, all those aunts, uncles and cousins doing okay?”

Ellen nodded. “Everyone's fine. How's Joey making out?”

Susanna's son had recently started summer session here in New Orleans at Tulane University, leaving Susanna, a divorcée of many years, with an unusually quiet house in Shreveport.

“Great. Except that life without mom-the-maid is coming as a shock. For me, too. I'm astounded at how much I'm
not
running the washing machine.”

Susanna laughed, but Lennon eyed her narrowly. “Don't let her fool you, Ellen. I happen to know she just
dropped big bucks on a laptop so she can still work when the urge to hop in her car and visit Joey strikes.”

Ellen guessed this might have something to do with Lennon's invitation for Susanna to participate in Miss Q's murder-mystery training. “A laptop is a good idea with your tight schedule.”

“My schedule,” Susanna said, “wouldn't be nearly so tight if I hadn't forgotten how to write a decent hero. But alas…” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I have, which means I've been riding my deadlines because I'm rewriting half my books.”

“You, too?” Tracy chimed in, peering at Susanna with what had to be feigned astonishment. “I've forgotten how to write a decent hero, too. I don't know what's going on. If I'd turned thirty already, I might worry about senility, but as I'm still in my twenties—”

“Oh, thank goodness!” Stephanie covered her eyes with a shaky hand. “I thought I was the only one having this problem. The rewrites on this book have been so extensive that I'm completely off schedule with my other projects. And if I miss my deadline, I'll never sell another book.”

“Try not to let revisions undermine your confidence,” Susanna suggested pragmatically. “Revisions are just part of the process. Right, Ellen?”

Ellen stared at the three tipsy faces, recognized high drama at its finest, and knew this scene had been staged, rehearsed and fortified with alcohol.

“Okay, ladies.” She steepled her fingers before her and assumed a professional mien. “What's on your minds?”

“Heroes,” Susanna said.

Not surprised that Susanna had been appointed the spokesperson of the group, Ellen asked, “What about them?”

“Our normally brilliant and insightful editor doesn't seem to like them anymore.”

The woman didn't pull any punches, but it wasn't her delivery that blew Ellen away, but her allegation. “What on earth makes you think I dislike heroes?”

The trio stared at her, but they suddenly didn't seem so tipsy.

“The fact that you hated my last one,” Susanna said.

Tracy nodded. “And mine.”

“And mine, too,” Stephanie added.

Ellen stared, expression carefully schooled as her mind raced to assess the accuracy of this accusation.

Susanna's last hero…the medieval bastard—no, baron—who kept abandoning the heroine to run off to battle.

Hmm, Ellen remembered him well and Susanna was right, he'd required some serious revision. She wouldn't say exactly half a book's worth, but abandoning the heroine was not a quality she or the romance readers considered heroic.

Who wanted a man who would leave at the drop of a hat, a man who wouldn't hang around long enough to fight for his heroine when the going got tough?

Tracy's last hero…the Elizabethan nobleman who'd gone to court as a spy and made love to the heroine without revealing his true identity.

Lying to any woman suggested a character flaw that was tough to tackle successfully in any commercial book-length novel. But lying was especially dastardly when it involved an affair of the heart. It was never easy for a woman to let her guard down, to trust a man enough to become vulnerable, especially knowing she might wind up heartbroken.

Stephanie's last hero…the Scottish lord whose heroine
had been kidnapped by a rebel clan. His lame attempts to rescue her had spanned several chapters.

If Ellen had been Stephanie's heroine she'd have been disappointed in a hero who couldn't manage a decent rescue in a timely fashion. Any hero who left the heroine alone for so long was lucky his woman didn't run off with the villain. A true hero would have pursued his heroine at all costs,
quickly
….

Okay, so she'd had some problems with their heroes. Valid problems? Ellen had thought so. But writing was a subjective business, a creative business. Even at their most professional, her authors were still artists, emotionally attached to their work. Editing often required performing a delicate balancing act of compliment and critique, to get the job done.

Okay, she saw where they were coming from, knew they wouldn't have approached her unless sure their concerns were valid.

She glanced at Lennon, who'd risen, hightailing it toward the bar. The coward. She'd known this conversation would invariably circle around to her latest hero.

…The Regency smuggler who was more interested in his wants and needs than his heroine's.

A true hero would have found a way to satisfy both. And even all those scrumptious orgasms in some very steamy cave scenes didn't make up for the lack.

Uh-oh.

Ellen stared into the trio of worried faces whose careers were currently riding on her ability to be as brilliant and insightful, and reasonable, as they believed her to be.

And they must have seen something encouraging in her expression because Susanna threw a hand across her forehead in true Sarah Bernhardt fashion and sighed breathlessly.

“Woe is me, I've forgotten how to write a hero and now my publishing house will stop buying my books. My agent will have to hit the streets, scrambling for new offers—”

“At least you'll get offers.” Tracy shot her a dubious look. “You're a
New York Times
bestselling author. Publishing houses will be fighting over you. Even with all my promotional efforts, I'm still only in the mid-list with seven books.”

“But at least you've got numbers.” Then Stephanie met Ellen's gaze with a look of entreaty. “My third book isn't even out yet. I'm completely at your mercy.”

Folding her arms across her chest, Ellen tried to smile at their theatrics, but not so surprisingly, the smile that had seemed etched on her face had done a disappearing act, because a terrible,
terrible
thought had just occurred to her.

If these ladies were right about her lack of objectivity—and Ellen had the sinking suspicion they might be—there could only be one explanation….

He
was interfering with her work, too.

Félicie Allée—three days later

T
HOUGH THE PLANTATION
wasn't quite an hour south of New Orleans, Félicie Allée might have been on a deserted island. The shady oak-lined alley leading to the circle drive and majestic front entrance transported Ellen from the reality of well-traveled highways baking beneath the sun to a shadowy fantasy place cooled by the bayou breeze.

Sunlight streamed through the leaves overhead to play shadow-and-lace games along the columns and metalwork enclosing the double-tiered balconies around the plantation.

She'd first visited Félicie Allée after Lennon's wedding.
Perhaps her second visit was even more breathtaking, because this time Ellen knew what to expect. Her awe was tempered with simple appreciation for the way the plantation had been built to bring a touch of elegance and civilization to the wildly lush setting. Crepe myrtles, azaleas and camellias all burst in bright bloom on the grounds, and to a woman like Ellen, reared beneath the often leaden skies of Manhattan and Long Island, the scene resembled a living oil painting.

“Leave it to your great-aunt to turn boring old corporate training into a game,” Ellen said, as Lennon steered her sport utility vehicle down the oak-lined drive leading to the plantation. “Corporate training and murder-mystery events. Who'd ever have thought of combining the two?”

Lennon shot her a sidelong glance. “No one has ever accused Auntie Q of lacking imagination.”

Ellen couldn't help but smile. Lennon's great-aunt believed in having a good time and didn't make apologies, an odd attitude to Ellen, whose family operated in such a different manner. Chatting with Miss Q always proved refreshing, very different from the in-depth business strategy sessions she had with various relations during family functions.